Moby's 'Hotel' his most intimate work yet

March 18, 2005|By Greg Kot, Tribune music critic.

In the past, Moby has relied on female singers

both live and sampled -- to give his music a touch of otherworldly beauty.

On his new double-CD, "Hotel" (V2), in stores Tuesday, the diminutive electro-pop icon is sample-free for the first time, and puts his soft, conversational voice front and center on the vast majority of songs. It's not exactly the expected move for an artist on the commercial downslope from his slow-build 1999 breakthrough, "Play," artist-turned-celebrity prominent enough after selling 10 million records to be name-checked derisively in an Eminem song. But it pays unexpected dividends: This is a warm, lilting new-wave album that's his most intimate work yet.

As usual, the brooding, minor-key melodies provide an exquisite backdrop for chilling out the igloo amid 18-foot snowdrifts. The closing instrumental, "Homeward Angel," makes depression sound positively transcendent, as it drifts weightlessly toward the heavens. Unseen steam jets puff and putter while long, sad chords are stretched into a slow parade of mourning. Shut-ins will surely revel in an extra disc of ambient instrumentals, the kind of stuff Moby cranks out in his bedroom recording studio with ridiculous ease while he's drying his eyes in between crying jags.

He's got a gift for turning moping into majesty, and he's not shy about exploiting it, over and over again. On "Raining Again," he brings the already urgent drum pattern to a gallop, jabs at his keyboards and tortures dissonance out of a slide guitar. "Sadness like water raining down," he sings, conjuring the pale ghost of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.

Lyrics have never been a strong suit, and that doesn't change here. He deals in downcast introspection tempered by glimmers of hope and hippie optimism left over from his days in the rave clubs. But he compensates with an avalanche of anthems. "Beautiful" winds up a shuffle into a big utopian chorus. Despite pronouncing that he's "strung out and cold, feeling so old," Moby turns "Lift Me Up" into a chant that echoes the rebel cry of South African township music. "Spiders" nods to David Bowie's glam-rock era and turns nonsense ("Come back to us, spiders/Come on crush my hands") into towering celebration.

A mantra of "seeing the good when it's all going bad" rescues "Slipping Away" from drowning in its own tears. It's yet another sad song that refuses to shrivel and die. Instead, it's fit for shouting from the third balcony in a hockey rink filled with waving lighters. U2 should be envious.

In between these proclamations of hope he slips in a few moments that merely brood. The nearly 58-minute disc could have benefited from some editing, starting with an extraneous cover of New Order's "Temptation," a dirge sung with narcotized indifference by guest chanteuse Laura Dawn. Try as he might, Moby doesn't make a very convincing gigolo in the hot-buttered ballad "I Like It." And the album could have used a few more uptempo dance tracks in the vein of "Very," which fondly recalls Moby's early '90s triumphs as the most outspoken voice in the techno underground.

"Hotel" nonetheless is more than just a temporary residence for Moby. Even when he's too bummed out to get out of bed, the elegant assurance of his melodies and the homely conviction in his voice suggest that he's right at home killing us softly with his songs.